Behind the Scenes – Laser cut earrings

A laser cutter is used to cut a variety of materials by burning through the material with the laser, thus cutting it. We use our laser to cut our earrings.

We start by designing our shape. This is done from a sketch on the iPad and imported into Corel Draw. Once our design is sized the way we want, it’s duplicated and set up to fill the entire space of our material.

Choosing a material is very important. Lasers cannot be used with any material that has PVC in it. Lots of faux leather contains PVC and can be very dangerous if lasered. When PVC leather is heated by a laser, it releases chlorine gas. Inhaling such fumes is extremely harmful to the lungs and potentially deadly.

We use PU leather. PU leather is a split leather that has been laminated with a polyurethane coating to make it look like a top grain leather.

You can purchase this material from many different sources. Amazon, Etsy, fabric stores, etc. But you must do your research and make sure you material is safe.

Above are some sheets of PU leather glitter material that I used to make the latest earrings in our shop!

You can see below we are using an 8×8 sheet and cover it in blue painters tape. This will prevent “burn” marks on the earrings.

Now that our material is covered, it is placed into the laser and let it do it’s job! 2 passes with the laser cut it perfectly. We just lift it out and remove the tape.

Watch the laser cut the material into earrings!

The next step is to add jump rings and french hooks. For this pair we are using a 4.5mm and a 8mm jump ring in gold.

Check out some of our current selection of custom laser cut earrings in our
online shop!